The sound of Jesse’s skull cracking to bear antlers cut through the forest with a horrifying echo. Red hair from Jesse’s head and beard turned into a thick coat that swallowed his skin, and the sound of a whimper fled his lips when his nose became a snout. As though growing out from his elbows and knees, his limbs extended and fingers fused together. Vince backed away as he watched his squad sniper roll over and struggle to stand like a newborn fawn.
“What the hell is this,” he whispered, blinking hard and touching the place where an arrow had grazed him. He knew there were all sorts of psychotropic drugs out there, but he’d never known of one that could produce an effect like this.
A red stag pranced hysterically in the clearing, making the blond one become even more skittish. Vince looked around. They were outnumbered three terrorists to one. They’d all obviously been drugged somehow…his face was hot, and he felt like he was moving forward against his own will.
“Can we keep these?” one of the terrorists asked, her gaze pleading with the leader. She walked up to the massive blond stag and tried to gentle the frightened creature. Oddly, it bobbed its head, stopped its agitated prancing and nuzzled her as she stroked it. The half-nude women looked back at their commander. “Please, Artemis,” she whispered. “I don’t think they were with the others.”
Another joined the willowy brunette that had spoken, pushing her long onyx braids over her shoulder. “He’s magnificent,” she murmured, going to the animal to lay her cheek against his neck.
“He’s not old like the generals, yes?” a wheat-haired captor said, producing an apple from thin air and feeding it to the animal with a flat palm.
Then three more female warriors moved forward, slowly approached the other large stag, attending to it gently and staring at their leader.
“It’s been thousands of years, Artemis,” the tallest one among the women gathered beside the red stag said, her voice strained and her expressive brown eyes seeming to beseech reason from their leader. “We all took the vow with you…but…in this new era the things we’ve—”
“It does not matter what temptations you’ve seen or felt in this new era! I care not. You will all keep your vow, as will I—a vow that I made when I was three years old.” The beautiful warrior folded her arms over her ample breasts and glared at her warriors.
Vince watched the one they called Artemis straighten her back as the female expressions became crestfallen. He blinked hard trying to get past the drugs they had obviously given him just so he could see straight. Something in his system was making him short of breath, making him stagger forward, had made his hand too heavy to hold a weapon. He was weaving where he stood, beginning to sweat. It was as though heat radiated off the leader and even though it went against all of his training, he stepped away from her to keep from passing out.
Regardless, during their standoff he was beginning to figure out their strange coded language—if it was a thousand-year-old vow, or so, then it had to be a Middle Eastern group, since that was the only reference point in his quickly fogging mind which had disputes that lasted that long…Greek or thereabouts in the Mediterranean, was close enough. Maybe leaders of each cell were called Artemis, a fake name, likely to denote who was in control of a specific engagement. That was plausible.
His mind scrambled for a rational explanation as an eerie silence folded over the glen. It was almost as though they’d become sealed away in a soundless envelope. It had to be the drugs, whatever was on the tip of the arrows—but what they didn’t know was that he and his men were the tip of the spear! Be strong. Maybe all this talk about the environment was bullshit, and fearing reprisal, the men behind some of the deadliest terrorist activity in the world had sent females out front to do their bidding…that would make sense, given the way the U.S. had been leaning on their resources. They’d abducted millionaires and billionaires, a ransom demand would have to come soon—who would waste such an opportunity. Dead stags his ass!
Obviously it was some grudge that went back before anyone could remember, and loyalists of the group were beginning to mutiny—not having the stomach, maybe, to kill off a bunch of military for whatever environmental cause they had. No. But it wasn’t an environmental cause. Vince shook his head, trying to clear it, feeling woozy, and hating the calm, smug expression on the one called Artemis’s face. Somewhere between them, one of the members of the group had to have figured out they were in deep shit and perhaps wanted a way out. But drugged, outgunned, outnumbered or not, his mission was clear; bring back the hostages alive, if possible, and find out the source of this terrorist cell to take it down.
“You don’t care about the environment,” he said, slurring his words, and trying to continue standing upright. “You blow up cars and innocent women and children, so stop the charade and tell us how much money you want for the CEOs.”
“Are you mad, barbarian?” she said with a gasp that cut through his skeleton.
On the verge of passing out, he slapped his chest, needing something to fracture the group, something to cause dissention to buy them time, searching for anything that would give him more information while the drugs wore off.
“I am Owiqwidicciat! My mother’s people are from the Makah Nation—what gives you the right to invade my forest, my trees, destroy my land? Huh? We walked here for thousands of years, and you come with death and destruction talking about peace? That’s bull! You’re no different to me than the first wave of invaders!”
The leader recoiled from his charges and suddenly he could breathe, his mind felt clear, and he straightened.
“Your forest?” she said as the women with her covered their hearts with their hands.
“That’s right, lady, you heard me! My people are from the Olympic Peninsula, as far north as you can go. This is our country, not yours!”
Discernable murmurs filtered through the trees.
“You are from Olympus?” Pure shock entered the one called Artemis’s eyes.
“Damned straight I am!”
She opened her mouth and closed it, her eyes raking him for the truth. “Your weapons—you stole them from—”
“We stole nothing, unlike you!”
“I stole nothing; we took back what was ours by rights.”
“Zeus gave them the thunder bolts and lightning rods?” one woman whispered.
“I must know who sent you,” Artemis demanded.
“I want the same information, so I guess that makes it a standoff. I wanna know who’s poaching on my land.” Vincent walked away and touched a badly damaged tree with clear disgust. “How many years would it take to replace just one? After all the wildfires,” he added, shaking his head and looking at the blaze that had been started from the grenade.
He watched the female leader cover her heart with her hand, briefly close her eyes, and the blaze quieted. Vince rubbed his eyes with his fist.
“Cut my men down before they pass out. Tie ’em up if you have to, but get ’em right side up.”
He’d said it just to see how far they’d go, not expecting them to comply, and he was shocked when she nodded and wrists got tied then vines got hacked. His men fell into female arms and the stags reared. He couldn’t tell what was happening as the women gathered behind the two animals.
“Oh, all right! But you do not break your vow unless I break mine. Bring their belongings and weapons. Extract what we must know without harming them, if possible,” their leader yelled, and then she raised her bow, withdrew two arrows from her quiver, and threaded and released them both before Vince’s hand could rise with a gun. Her arrows found their marks and the great stags dropped to their knees. “Come,” she ordered. “Your men will befall no harm. That is no longer the objective of my nymphs, it seems. The ones transformed will return to the human forms. We should speak freely in my tent. I have much to ask you about this new world, Titan.”